Cooking, Eating, and Drinking on the North Shore (and beyond)

The Zucchini Wars July 17, 2008

Back when I lived with roommates in JP, we split our local CSA three ways. Usually this worked out very well: when we got only two tomatoes, one roommate would use hers in dahl and the other would use hers in a sandwich, they kindly saved me the bulk of the arugula (my love for arugula knows no bounds). However, in mid July we sometimes fought over zucchini. We got a lot of zucchini and there are only so many ways three women can eat zucchini. We began to keep track. Tempers ran high.
“I used two last week, it’s your turn!” said one roommate out of frustration one day.
“Don’t look at me” I said “I put zucchini in my stir fry yesterday.”

(thanks, vegetarianceliac.blogspot.com)

When you start quantifying zucchini consumption, you know you have problems. I made spaghetti sauce with some one week and felt virtuous, but there were still five left in the refrigerator drawer. One roommate made chilled curried zucchini soup. She used three zucchinis, but none of us loved the recipe. I sliced a fourth one very thin for sandwiches (fresh mozzarella, herbs, vinaigrette, and thinly sliced zucchini is surprisingly good). That lasted all week. One zucchini to go and then it was Saturday when we picked up our CSA share and got six more zucchinis. Our household survived zucchini season intact, but after it was over, none of us voluntarily brought zucchini into the house until late February.

Zucchini grows well on the North Shore too. My neighbor just gave me a zucchini the size of my arm. What will I do with it? Zucchini fritters? Stuffed zucchini? I’ll let you know.

I ended up making stuffed zucchini with local (yay Tendercrop!) ground turkey, rice, onions, cloves, cinnamon, and zaatar (Middle Eastern spice mixture usually containing thyme, sumac, sesame seeds, and salt). There was also lemon juice and lots and lots of feta. It was quite good. Next time I’m going to follow groundcherry’s example and make zucchini chocolate chip cookies.

Nice zucchini pictures. You can also make zucchini appetizer by dipping fresh thin slices zucchini in the batter and then deep fried it in the hot frying oil until golden brown and served it hot with ranch dressing. Yummy!